Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Wednesday, August 03, 2016

Jailed in hospitals for debts

Few Nigerians have health insurance.Four months after giving birth in Umuahia, the capital of Nigeria's southeastern Abia state, 23-year-old single mother Amarachi Amadi is still in hospital with her baby girl. While the mother and her daughter are in good health, they are not allowed to leave the public hospital until Amadi settles the 543,000 naira ($1,900) bill for their care. Amadi, who makes a living selling stones to construction workers for 40 naira ($0.15) per sack, fears she may never be able to clear her debt - leaving her and her baby trapped in the Umuahia Federal Medical Centre (FMC) for the foreseeable future. There are a large number of ABS patients at the FMC due to the hospital's policy of treating every patient who arrives, regardless of whether they can afford to pay upfront for their treatment, said ChukuAbali, the director of the hospital. Abali said he frequently waives the bills of the hospital's patients, many of whom are nursing mothers, with amounts ranging from 10,000 naira ($35) to 1.5 million naira ($5,300). "But if we continue to run on charity, we will fold. Things have to be paid for," Abalitold the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The University College Hospital (UCH) in the southwestern city of Ibadan has set up a fund which allows hospital staff to make voluntary monthly contributions from their salaries towards patients' bills. Abandoned teenage mothers are given priority. Yet these contributions alone are not enough to solve the problem, said Adefemi Afolabi, the UCH's deputy director. "The government also needs to extend the National Health Insurance Scheme so it goes to the grassroots," he said. "Only government workers and some private workers are entitled to it."

New mothers like Amadi are stuck in maternity wards across Nigeria - forbidden from leaving until their debts are settled. Known as Awaiting Bill Settlement (ABS) patients, these women are responsible for looking after and feeding themselves and their newborns. Whenever the maternity ward at the hospital is full, many ABS patients are forced to sleep on the floor. "Sometimes, we place all the babies on one bed while the mothers sleep in chairs," said one nurse. "Some babies have stayed here until they started crawling," the nurse said, adding that some mothers had managed to escape the hospital with their babies when no one was watching.

Janet Moses, 19, said the father of her twin boys had stopped visiting or answering her calls over the past month. She believes he has been scared off by the bill. No one visits Moses or brings her food, so she depends on other patients to share their meals with her.

Adaku Mmaduabuchi, a 25-year-old housewife who gave birth to her first child in May, is brought meals daily by her husband. But they too have been struggling to pay off their debt. "I have been phoning my friends and relatives to see if anyone can lend me the money," said her husband, Ihunze, who has so far only paid a third of the 200,000 naira ($700) they owe.

25-year-old Blessing Godfrey, a student was rushed to the hospital after she fell unconscious when her baby was born unexpectedly. Godfrey woke up on the ward to learn that her baby had died. Two weeks later, the grieving mother is still in hospital, discharged but unable to settle her 19,000 naira ($67) bill. Her mother, a widow, makes very little selling vegetables, while her boyfriend, also a student, denies he is the father. "There is no one to assist me," Godfrey said.